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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 80, I will speak also to Amendment 81, which is grouped with it. This is, in reality, a drafting amendment; I do not think that anything here is a matter of principle. We are looking at Clause 5 and the addition of proposed new Section 124B to the Communications Act 2003. In subsection (2)(b) we find that the ISP has to provide a copyright infringement list that, ""does not enable any subscriber to be identified"." That seems something of a legislative oxymoron, because the whole point of this clause is that the subscriber will in due course be capable of being identified. Indeed, paragraphs 49 and 50 of the Explanatory Notes explain how subscriber 936 is being linked to most CIRs although no personal information about subscriber 936 would be included. It states that, ""to get this personal data, the copyright owner would need a court order"." It seems that the clause intends that it should not be possible to identify the name and address of the subscriber from the copyright infringement list. Clearly, we cannot simply say that it should not enable any subscriber to be identified when, both in relation to the Explanatory Notes and in due course, the whole point of a copyright infringement list, if the procedures are followed, is that the subscriber will be identified. Otherwise, how can the penalties which will be set out in the code be attached to a subscriber whose identity is unknown? I beg to move.